


Karma

by randumbdaze



Series: Jude [1]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Transcendence, Curses, Gen, Human!Bill, Original Character(s), Past Child Abuse, Reincarnation, Transcendence AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-19
Updated: 2016-02-19
Packaged: 2018-05-21 21:48:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6059271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/randumbdaze/pseuds/randumbdaze
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An angry Bill reincarnation tries to make a deal with Alcor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Karma

**Author's Note:**

> I just realized that her name is never said in the fic, but it's Jude.

    When Alcor feels the pull of a summoning for the first time in weeks, it’s hilariously weak. No candles, no sacrifice, a circle that’s more of a scribble, and some painfully mangled Latin combine to make a call that almost slips by him and he’s extremely reluctant to answer. Not because he thinks he won’t get much out of it— though he’s sure that’s the case— more for the affront of it. This person tries to summon _Alcor the Dreambender_ and can’t even put in the effort to light some tea candles or something? Yet expects it to work?

    He can feel the will of the summoner though, and that, that is surprisingly strong. It almost makes up for the rest of the horrible summon. Almost.

    On any other day he’d ignore it, but he’s been going through a dry spell lately in terms of people summoning him, and that’s left him hopelessly, intolerably bored. If anything, he can pop in to see whoever was incompetent enough to use _Alcor me te phonem_ as the first words in their incantation and _por favorus_ as their last, and laugh, flagrantly and unapologetically, in their face.

    He wreathes his body in flames, ready to do the whole song and dance, and blips over to the location of the summoning. “W̢̯̗͓̫̬̪͈͊̌͂ͮ̊̽ͅH̴̴̞̪͕̟̯̜̽ͮ̽͝ͅͅO̭͓͖͍̻̩̯̦͒ͦ̿̏̽͛ ̮̲̯͇̫̣͚̤̈̉̑̑͊̚͞D̙͙̙̦͖̙͙̽̐̓̿ͨĄ̱̣̞ͥ̾ͮͫ̓R̴̸̩̳̦͔̺̣̝̋̇̃̈́͗͌̊̾̕E͊ͫ̿ͫ͒͒ͣ͏͔̖̲S̷͈̪̬̞̩̮̗ͯ̀̐ ̶̻̣̜̣̆͗̊ͮ͠͡S͓̪͎̭̳̜̪̙ͯ̒Ù͖̼͆͋̈́M̯̪̦̎̃̓̽̊ͨ͘͜Mͬͪͫͪ̈̐̒͏͚͠Ō̴̫͚̖͈͙̠̞̪͊N̡̙͚̫̱͍̭ͦͭͬͦ͘͡ ͍̻̪̬̣̟͌͒̓͛̄͋̚A̋̂͝҉̪͜L͉͍̠̟̞̟ͤ͒ͫ̍̃̀C̾̈ͨͮ̓͒--” he starts and then falters, his flames popping out of existence like blown lightbulbs, his mouth going slackjaw, because two seconds in and he knows exactly who this is-- there’s no need to ask. And he should learn to expect this by now, but every time, every time it’s still a slap in the face.

    The child standing in front of him, no more than 15, blinks in surprise, then frowns. His blank shock probably wasn’t what she expected when she first heard tales of the most powerful demon in existence. “Um…Alcor? Almighty _Dreambender_ , sir?” He continues to float unresponsively in the summoning circle while her aura’s color, a faint red annoyance mixed with orange confusion, deepens. “Are you broken or some shit?”

    Alcor’s eyes focus and anger blooms on his face. He had been mentally wrestling with how to deal with this, whether to hear out her request fairly— she is merely a child after all—; or try to screw her over; scare the shit out of her as some sort of karma; or simply just to leave; but her comment settles it. “I'm not dealing with you, kid. Sorry.” He begins to fade away from the physical realm and says with a wink to distract from his twisting frown, “Word to the wise, maybe use actual Latin next ti—

    “Wait!”

    He pauses in his fadeout, his image flickering. She is glaring as if daring him to go, though her aura is tinged with a cyan desperation. “No way you’re leaving just like that! Not after all this work!” She throws her arm out, gesturing to the circle, which Alcor sees is drawn, in pencil, on papers crudely arranged in a vague round shape. They’re not even taped. A drop of blood lays dried in the center of the circle, also on a paper, but it’s only a drop. It’s all so crude, so cheap, so _impermanent_. He’s not impressed in the slightest, except for perhaps how much she has managed to cut corners, invest as little effort as possible, while technically fulfilling requirements. It makes a sort of sense, in light of her soul. Don’t demons just love to pull shit like this?

    Alcor raises an eyebrow and smirks. “You’re kidding me, right?” He, too, gestures to her ‘work’. “All of this screams ‘I wanted to do this as quickly, easily, and cheaply as possible.’ You can’t possibly call this ‘work’. Work implies you _tried_. You _do_ know that it’s the _more_ permanent, elaborate stuff that gets my attention, not the other way around?” He lazily flicks a paper away with his foot, stepping out of the ‘broken’ ‘circle’. “The only reason I answered you is because I was bored and hoped this’d be entertaining, but it’s really just embarrassing.”

    The girl looks down, dark green shame flashing through her aura. But it quickly turns back into reds, purple offendedness, and she glares at him, spitting, “Well what was I supposed to do? Carve your circle into the floorboards? Kill a dude to use him as a sacrifice?”

    “Find out what my actual summoning incantation is instead of making shit up?” Alcor quips, strolling around her. While he’s here, he might as well have fun antagonizing the shadow of his old enemy. “And paint and a pigeon work just fine.” Not that he ever wants to answer her summoning again.

    “Well, well…! How am I supposed to do any of that either? Paint the floor, have a dead bird in the house? My parents are already probably going to kill me for wasting paper, if I did any of that I’d be literally dead.” Instead of her emotions staying constant or growing— as they would in any child exaggerating their parents’ anger and blatantly misusing the word ‘literally’— they all shift toward the sickly yellow of fear. Alcor’s eyes narrow slightly. Hm.

    “If you want to actually get anything out of this deal other than a stick of gum, you gotta put at least a somewhat equal amount in. Them’s the breaks, kid.” He stops walking and straightens up. “What do you want, anyway? Not that I'm going to give it to you, b—“

    “I want to get out of here.”

    Irritation crosses his face at being interrupted. He begins to meander again around the tiny room, casually picking things up as if interested in them and putting them back in slightly different places. A sports trophy, a broken toy, a pencil nub. “Why? It’s such a nice place,” he says, examining a hole punched through the crumbling plaster wall. He glances up at the distended ceiling, which is dripping some sort of non-water liquid. “I’d hate to leave.”

    The child looks furious. She knows he’s mocking her.

    “Seriously though, kid,” he continues, “whaddya want? Me to fix you up a house that doesn’t bend when the wind blows? ‘S a lot to ask for when all you’ve given me are pencil shavings and the mangled carcass of a dead language. Which doesn’t count as a sacrifice, by the w—”

    “That’s not the reason!” Again with the interrupting, eesh. And a little too loud, too. Why is he still here, again? “I-it’s my parents,” she says, the first real hint of vulnerability showing through. “They’re horrible. I can’t be with them anymore.”

    Alcor has frozen, his back to her. “C’mon,” he says in a joking tone. “Everybody’s parents get on their nerves now and then.”

    “No, you don’t understand!” she says, a familiar rage sparking in her again. “They’re not just embarrassing or annoying or anything like that! They call me stupid…or even worse names…they tell me they wish I was never born!”

    He turns his head to peer at her. She is touching her cheek gingerly, staring into space. “Sometimes they hit me,” she says softly. “They say that I deserve it for being such a bad child. For being lazy and rude and useless. For not doing exactly what they say, even when it doesn’t make sense…And it never makes sense! They’re always lying to my face about shit they said or what I'm supposed to do, and it’s confusing, and sometimes I think I'm going crazy—” She shakes her head, and her voice raises again. “Just what did I do to get such pieces of shit for parents, huh?! What kind of assholes say that, do that to their own daughter? Why?” She looks at him. “Well?!”

    He faces her, but his expression is neutral when he speaks. “Information comes at a higher price than you’re giving me, kid.”

    She stares at him. “There’s gotta be a reason. They’re so nice to everyone else.” She smiles ruefully. “…Maybe they’re right and I do deserve it. Maybe I'm as terrible and rude and lazy as they say.”

    Alcor holds his tongue.

    “Sometimes I wonder,” she continues, her aura flushing with deep blues, “if I was a mass-murderer in a past life or something, and all this is karma out to get me. The universe, hating me for what I’ve done. Then I would deserve it, wouldn’t I.” There’s a pause, then she looks up at him intensely. “You…! You know about past lives! What was I?”

    “Information comes at a higher price than—

    “Come on, tell me! A murderer? A rapist? A cannibal? It makes sense, doesn’t it? Because if I was…then I deserve everything I get, don’t I?!”

    Taken aback, partly because she has started stepping closer to him during her rant, Alcor composes himself and studies her. The volatility, the hostility, all of it reminds him of an angrier version of Bill, and an ugly reminder of his wrath. Bill, who ruined countless people’s lives in his deal-making, started the Transcendence in an attempt to take over the world, and damned Alcor to immortality to watch his loved ones die about him, over and over and over. Whose influence still swims in him, turning him farther and farther from humanity into something he loathes. Who stands before him, a fierce look in her eyes, seemingly flaunting her undeserved mortal life in his face. If anyone deserves karma, if anyone deserves abuse, it’s be Bill.

    But Alcor shakes his head, looking at the broken, hurt child in front of him. “Even if you paid enough for me to say, I’d tell you it doesn’t matter. Karma’s bullshit, kid. Now come on, let’s get out of here.” He extends a hand, blue flame bursting out and enwreathing it.

    “Wh—but I thought you said—”

    “Yeah yeah, c’mon, before I change my mind.”

    She stares blankly at it, then grabs it firmly.

    They’re gone in a flash of light, papers, the remains of the circle, swirling behind them.


End file.
